Marcia, did you notice if the leaves kind of turned a little blackish and then ended up crispy?

Parts of mine did that either last year or the year before (?) but the following year it was fine.

I don't have a clue what it might have been though.

Maybe someone else has a better answer?

Lynn

No, i never noticed them turning black at all. They just all of a sudden crisped up like that. It's not normal end of the year stuff, either - they look sick. :(

Did your white one recover in the spring? I planted three new apple trees this year and the leaves curled and then dried out at the end of aug\sept. Upon further investigation I noticed I have a green caterpillar and webbing with black eggs? I sprayed!!!!! I either had hundreds of the caterpillars or they are very busy to destroy as many leaves as they did. It was quite literally fine one day and then three days later all dried out.

The branches with the crispy leaves never recovered. I never saw any insects on them or on the pink one either. Both lilacs are several years old - the pink one is at least 10 years old.

Could just be stress.(heat, lack of water, etc.)

One thing it could be is verticillium wilt. Hopefully not, because it is a terrible thing, but it does effect plants like that.

It was hot this summer, but we had lots of rain when it did rain. I hope it's not verticillium wilt - it has been a beautiful lilac with really lovely pink blooms.